Girl 99

by Andy Jones

  I’ve finished colouring most of the stripes on a sleeping tiger when Verity yawns and closes the book with a sharp snap.

  ‘That good?’ I ask.

  Out of solidarity with Ruth, our vampire starlet, Verity has run a green streak through her hair and fitted me with a pair of pointy ears.

  ‘Lack of sleep,’ Verity says.

  Stuck for an answer, I nod and go over one of my tiger’s stripes. We are sharing a small folding table at the back of the room; the nearest person to us is the best boy, but he’s plugged into his headphones, learning French. It’s not exactly an intimate spot, but now that I know Verity has a boyfriend, it’s relaxed and cosy. Verity making the odd comment as she turns pages in her novel; me humming to myself, apparently, as I ink in my big cat.

  ‘Your ear’s slipping,’ Verity says.

  ‘My what?’

  ‘Here.’ She shuffles her chair next to mine, licks her finger and uses it to moisten the glue on my werewolf ear. ‘That’s better.’

  ‘Not interrupting anything, am I?’ says Holly as she approaches our table. She says this in complete innocence, but the heat rises in my cheeks all the same.

  ‘No, not all, we’re just . . . fixing my ear.’

  ‘Ah, cute,’ says Holly. ‘Are you all right for tea? Coffee?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ says Verity.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Orange juice? Water?’

  ‘No thanks,’ I say. ‘I’m all good.’

  Verity shakes her head. ‘Thanks. I’m all good, too.’

  ‘Well, just yell if you need anything. Right, I’ll . . . leave you to it.’ Then she smiles – as if at a basket of kittens – and walks away.

  Verity is smirking.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think Holly’s got the hots for someone.’

  ‘Me?’ I say, feeling as though I’m walking a precipice. ‘Don’t be daft.’

  ‘She’s a nice-looking girl,’ says Verity.

  ‘She’s seeing Rob.’

  Verity beams. ‘Ah, that’s so sweet. They’re just right for each other, don’t you think?’

  The truth is, I hadn’t thought about it. Not from their point of view. On the tube journey home last Friday, after my clumsy hit on Holly and her revelation that she was ‘going with Rob’, I wallowed briefly in a stew of self-made embarrassment. But subsequent events and subsequent wallowings pushed the Holly-and-Rob thing to the rear of my mind. But now that I do think about it, I can appreciate Verity’s point.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘They are.’

  ‘Sweet,’ she says again. ‘Doesn’t it just make you feel . . .’ She pushes the fingers of both hands into her hair and gives it an absent-minded tousling.

  ‘It’s a good look,’ I say.

  ‘What’s good luck?’

  ‘No – a good look. A good style. The whole’ – I make rock horns with the index and little fingers of my right hand – ‘wild-chick thing.’

  ‘Wild?’

  ‘I mean rock chick, wild child.’ I actually wish I’d kept my mouth shut. ‘You know . . . the knackered jeans and’ – miming big erratic hair – ‘mad hair . . . thing.’

  Verity regards me through semi-squinted eyes. ‘You make it sound so glam.’

  ‘So what’s that all about anyway?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The dress-up thing. The rollergirl; the sailor get-up; the vintage thing; the wild chick.’

  Verity laughs. ‘Didn’t know you were paying so much attention.’

  I gesture vaguely about myself; it’s completely meaningless but in the absence of something clever to say it will have to do.

  ‘Anyway,’ says Verity, ‘I already told you. Verity is . . .’ She nods at me to continue.

  ‘The spice of life.’

  ‘There you go. Besides, most of it’s shoot loot. You know, leftover wardrobe and whatnot, so it’s a shame to just have it hanging at home feeding the moths. The’ – painting quote marks in the air – ‘sailor thing was from an Amex shoot; the vintage thing was a cider commercial; and the rollergirl thing was a bit of fun for that bloody awful roller disco. So now you know.’

  ‘And this?’ I say, again with the rock horns.

  ‘This?’ Verity says, pointing two index fingers at herself. ‘This is me,’ she says. ‘Me getting up early for a shoot and not having time to think about what I’m wearing or what I’m going to do with my hair. My knackered jeans, my “mad hair”, just . . . out of bed and out the door.’

  I grimace an apology, but Verity is smiling.

  ‘I like it,’ I tell her. ‘It’s a good look.’

  The problem with bright moments, such as the one just expired, is the awkward silence that invariably follows. As if the high borrows oxygen from the following pocket of time. At a dinner party, someone will generally fill the void with a comment about the quality of the food. Great potatoes. Thanks, we got them from the organic market at Putney. Now isn’t organic just a great big con . . . and you’re back on track. There are no organic potatoes to discuss here, so I direct my attention to Verity’s book, The Secret History.

  ‘Any good?’ I ask.

  Verity picks up the novel and weighs it in her hand. ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Very. Not what I’d normally go for but . . . yeah.’

  ‘Verity is the spice of life, right?’

  Verity smiles. ‘A friend of mine – hair and make-up – she goes to a book club, so now and again, I go too. Although we never seem to cross over. I’m wittering, sorry.’

  ‘What’s it about? The book.’

  Verity blows out air as she thinks how to answer the question. ‘Growing up, fitting in, class, snobbery, intellectualism . . . sexuality. Maybe.’

  I pull a face.

  ‘I’m not doing it justice,’ Verity says. ‘You can borrow it when I’m done, tell me what you think.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll watch the movie.’

  ‘There isn’t one,’ Verity says, shaking her head. ‘You’ll have to do it the hard way. Or not at all.’

  She passes the novel to me and I read the back-cover blurb. ‘It’s a bit . . . heavy,’ I say, weighing the fat volume in my hands.

  ‘Oh, come on. When was the last time you read a really good book?’

  An old memory floats to the surface and I laugh involuntarily.

  ‘What?’ asks Verity. ‘Are you taking the—’

  ‘No, no, sorry, just remembering something. Silly.’

  ‘Well, now you have to tell.’

  ‘Ha ha! Well’ — wondering if I should take the conversation in this direction and instantaneously deciding what the hell — ‘I was young.’

  Verity glares at me, exasperated.

  I check over my shoulder, and then say quietly. ‘It was called Sexus.’

  Verity laughs. ‘Now there’s an ambiguous title. Who was it by?’

  ‘Henry Miller,’ I say, cringing at the name and its old associations.

  ‘Any good?’

  I remember that I’m wearing a pair of pointy plastic ears. My cheeks redden, but I don’t mind and it doesn’t seem to matter – after all, Verity has a boyfriend now, so I have nothing to lose, gain or fear.

  ‘Bits of it were . . . good enough,’ I say. ‘If you know what I mean.’

  ‘I do if it’s anything like Lady Chatterley.’ Verity screws up her eyes as if she’s made a terrible faux pas. ‘Oh my God,’ she says from behind her hand. ‘Too much information, Verity.’

  ‘The joy of books,’ I say.

  Verity shakes her head and opens The Secret History.

  I pick up my felt-tip pen and start on the tiger’s tail.

  We wrap the shoot at six, and Ben pops a bottle of champagne in honour of Kaz’s engagement. I’m out of the door and heading for home before the cork hits the ground.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ‘Sixty,’ says Doug, pulling his darts from the board. ‘Steady enough.’

  I haven’t seen him since Eileen came to visit, and what
with this packet of Viagra in my back pocket, I’m finding it hard to concentrate on the game.

  ‘How’s the shoot?’ he asks.

  I’m looking for an opening, a nice segue into: Talking of which, I’ve got three tablets of dead man’s Viagra here. But it’s not as easy as you might imagine.

  ‘Off to a good start,’ I tell him, hitting the lower section of the four.

  ‘Do you need your eyes testing?’ Doug asks.

  Talking of eyes, look at these beauties.

  ‘Just tired,’ I say.

  I lean at the waist as I take aim, pushing my bottom out slightly and hoping the Viagra will work their way out of my back pocket and onto the floor.

  ‘You look uncomfortable, lad.’

  I am.

  ‘Bad back,’ I say.

  ‘Perhaps you need a new bed,’ says Doug. And then, as if to himself, ‘Well, I wouldnae be surprised.’

  I turn to Doug, mouth half open, dart still gripped in my fingers.

  ‘Only joking,’ he says, holding his hands up in surrender.

  ‘Ha,’ I say.

  Talking of my bed . . .

  ‘You all right, lad?’

  I turn back to the board. ‘Yeah,’ I tell him. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Oof,’ says Doug. ‘Double top.’

  It’s hopeless.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I’m a dog, Verity is a tiger, Albert is an octopus.

  In animal snap, you deal out the full deck and all turn over one card at the same time. If anyone turns over the same value card as you, you have to make their noise before they make yours: a bark, a growl, or – according to Albert – a schplorbble.

  We all turn a card.

  No matches.

  Outside our trailer, rain is hitting the ground so hard it bounces back to knee height. The weathermen are saying we’re in for one of the wettest summers on record, and if today is anything to go by they might just be right for once.

  Well bring it on.

  The majority of Frankenstein’s Albert was to be shot outside, but there’s no way that’s happening in this weather. Even if we wanted to brave the rain we couldn’t, on account of Albert’s make-up. Plus we have poor light and bad contrast. We’ve got more chance of raising the dead than shooting this commercial today. When it became apparent we were looking at a washout, we rearranged the shooting order and filmed our single indoor set-up – the resolution scene in the dungeon. Albert nailed it in one take.

  Kaz is livid, as if the rain is my fault, was somehow my idea.

  And while Kaz is going ballistic, the crew – me and Ben included – can barely contain its delight. Thanks to the wonder that is weather insurance, me, Ben, Verity and every other member of contracted crew pocket an additional day’s wages for doing little more than drinking coffee on the catering bus and doing the crossword. All that the agency and client get is a wet bum and a day out of the office. By midday Kaz had become unbearable, so Ben took her and the client for a posh lunch while I stayed behind to rearrange next week’s schedule and supervise the equipment. Albert’s mother has gone out to buy souvenirs from the gift shop, but we need to keep Albert’s make-up dry, so in addition to my other duties, I’m babysitting. The agency creative still hasn’t taken the hint – yesterday he invited Verity to a preview screening of some indie movie – so Verity has joined me and Albert in the art-department trailer, rather than eating lunch on the crew bus where she is susceptible to further embarrassment.

  ‘Why don’t you just tell him?’ I ask.

  ‘Tell him what?’

  Verity is wearing a Smashing Pumpkins T-shirt today. She has run a red streak through her wild-chick hair and attached a wart the size of a peanut to her nose.

  I’m wearing red eyeliner, and a trickle of blood runs from the corner of my mouth. ‘I dunno. That you’re . . . not available.’

  ‘Bit blunt, isn’t it? Anyway, shoot’ll be over in a week.’

  The idea deflates me somewhat.

  We all turn another card.

  No matches.

  And again.

  And again.

  There’s a false start with a nine of hearts, an eight of hearts and a seven of diamonds – we all get a bit excited and growl, bark, schplorbble, but no cards change hands.

  ‘Going anywhere nice for your summer holidays?’ I ask Albert.

  Albert’s face is thick with blue make-up. He shakes his head a little sadly. ‘No. Well, I’m going to see my dad, but I don’t know anyone where he lives.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘Mum says Dad’s priorities are confused, and that some men never grow up. And he says it’s not about growing up but growing apart, but I don’t know what that means. She says he takes her for granted and he said she let herself go, but she never goes anywhere. Dad has a girlfriend, but Mum says she doesn’t have the time or energy for anyone else. And anyway, all men are the same.’

  ‘Blimey,’ says Verity. ‘That does sound like a pickle.’

  ‘Schplorbble,’ I say, taking Albert’s three of clubs.

  ‘I used to feel left out at school,’ says Verity, ‘because both of my best friends’ parents were divorced.’

  Albert smiles a big goonish grin. ‘Really?’

  Verity nods. ‘I thought it was very . . . dramatic, I suppose. And my friends had this thing in common, talking about all the arguments their parents had. Plus, both of their dads completely spoiled them with dresses, shoes, games, ice creams.’

  ‘Dad bought me a new football,’ Albert says. ‘But Mum says that’s typical of him and I shouldn’t expect the same from her. I should be grateful she cooks my meals and washes my underpants, she says.’

  ‘I guess she’s right,’ I say.

  ‘It’s hard on everyone,’ says Verity.

  ‘But your parents are married,’ Albert says.

  ‘Were. They got divorced when I was twenty-six. So I guess we should all be careful what we wish for, hey?’

  Albert nods, rattling the zipper glued above his eyes. ‘It’ll work out, Zipperhead,’ Verity says, kissing Albert on the forehead. ‘One way or another.’ And when she pulls back, she has blue face paint smeared across her lips.

  ‘Blue lips,’ says Albert, pointing.

  ‘Yes, and now we’re going to have to redo your Frankenface, aren’t we?’

  Verity winks at me. Smiles.

  I want to kiss those lips.

  Verity’s brow furrows slightly, and I realise that I’m staring.

  I turn to Albert. ‘So, Zipperhead, I’ve got a question for you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You go to school with Ruth the vampire?’

  Albert shrugs.

  ‘I saw you two chatting at the make-up tests.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘She’s very pretty, don’t you think?’

  ‘How would I know?’ says Albert.

  ‘You mean you hadn’t noticed?’ asks Verity.

  Albert wrinkles his brow and shakes his head emphatically.

  ‘Are you sure, Albert?’ I tease.

  ‘I know what you two are doing,’ he says.

  ‘I’m not doing anything,’ I say, all mock-offended. ‘I just thought that maybe you . . . liked Ruth, that’s all.’

  ‘She’s only eight,’ says Albert. ‘I’m nine.’

  ‘A younger woman!’ teases Verity.

  ‘I’m warning you,’ says Albert, taking hold of his zipper. ‘If you don’t stop being silly I’m going to pull my zipper off.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ I say. ‘It’s not like we can film anything.’

  ‘And anyway,’ says Verity, ‘your brains will fall out. And then how are you going to make Ruth your girlfriend?’

  ‘I mean it,’ says Albert. ‘I’ll do it.’

  My phone rings. I listen to what Ben has to say, hang up the call, walk over to Albert and peel the zipper from his head, leaving a pink horizontal scar in his blue make-up.

  ‘It’s a wrap,’ I tell him.<
br />
  The time is approaching three in the afternoon, and even if the weather does break, there’s not enough day left. We’ll try again next week. And if it rains again, Ben says, we’ll cover Albert in lettuce and call him Swamp Thing.

  Verity is removing Albert’s make-up. ‘What are you up to this weekend, Zipperhead?’

  ‘Playing football tomorrow.’

  ‘What’s your position?’ I ask.

  ‘Defender.’

  ‘Figures,’ I say. ‘I used to be a goalie. Cos I’m so long.’

  ‘Are you married?’ asks Albert.

  I laugh. ‘What’s that got to do with football?’

  ‘Well, you said you used to play,’ says Albert. ‘And my dad used to play football, but he says after he got married, Mum wouldn’t let him play anymore.’

  ‘Right, I see. No, I’m not married.’

  ‘Have you got a girlfriend then?’

  ‘Yeuch. Horrible things.’

  Albert laughs and Verity throws a dirty cotton ball at me.

  Albert turns to her. ‘Are you married?’

  ‘Not married, no boyfriend, don’t play football. Next question, please, Zipperhead.’

  No boyfriend?

  Verity has ‘no boyfriend’.

  I rehearse a question in my head, attempting to give it a casual aspect but conscious that if I don’t spit it out in the next few seconds, it’ll sound anything but. ‘So . . . the, er . . . ?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Didn’t you say something about a . . . second . . . date?’

  ‘Did I?’ asks Verity.

  I shake my head, shrug – no big deal, just asking, it’s really nothing – ‘I thought I overheard . . . something. Probably nothing.’

  ‘Overheard, did you? What did you overhear?’

  This trailer is smaller than it seemed ten minutes ago. I look at Albert and he shakes his head: Don’t ask me.

  ‘Carpenter? Maybe?’

  ‘Joiner,’ says Verity.

  ‘Right, and you didn’t . . . it didn’t . . .’ I make a gesture intended to indicate two pieces of wood being connected, in a dovetail joint perhaps, but I realise it might be misinterpreted and abandon the charade. ‘Click,’ I say.

  Albert picks up the deck of cards and shuffles them clumsily.

  ‘No,’ says Verity. ‘It didn’t click. Without a drink in his hand – in his system – John—’